Today I’d planned to continue our explorations of harvest lore, specifically making corn dollies, but instead, I feel the urgency of this occasion to share these words from two of my dear teachers with you.

Hecate sits on her tripod at the crossroads in the underworld. She holds aloft her torch to light the way for those souls who have died.

We send our love and compassion to them, their friends, and family. Her light also illumines this situation, enables us to see it clearly, and reveals the truth.

We look deeply at the crossroads, and feel the tide pushing us toward a road of more war, militarization, and repression. We hold open the possibility that there is another way. We pour out every drop of love, compassion and hope we can and stir it into her cauldron clockwise, stirring counterclockwise to release negative forces.

The winds of change have been blowing strongly through the streets of my region, my town, my neighborhood, my street. The brutal songs of power-over have tried to drown out the powerful songs of rising Earth Wisdom being sung in the Twin Cities.

Some of my friends and feres have been singled out by the so called ‘authorities’ to be arrested, detained, beaten, tased and humiliated. The poisonous hex of fear and manipulation that has been seeping throughout much of American life, has flowed freely and visibly over this blessed countryside I call home. The texture of life in the Twin Cities will never be the same. There has rarely been a time in my life that the challenge of actively and consciously choosing to live in beauty, balance and delight has been more demanding.

I have noticed a shift in the Midgard tapestry, the morphic fields of consensual reality, the webs of being, these last few days. The Norns have taken the weft threads that we have given Them and have begun to weave those threads into the next chapter of our never ending story.

And yet at the same time, the calls for understanding, compassion, transformation and joyful sustainability are arising from every corner, crack and crevice of the Good Green Earth.

Has the clash of cultures deepened?

It appears to me that it is no longer enough for us to just tend our individual organic gardens, our Earth friendly homes, our isolated lives of spiritual safety, our own private concerns limited to only ourselves and those we hold precious. No matter how beautiful and comfortable our current lives may be, the storms of change are heading our way.

It is time for Witches and other folks of spirit to take that next step of cultural transformation. I suspect it is time for us to dare to consciously and actively co-create healthy sustainable communities of compassion and vitality. I suspect it is time to systematically coordinate the full manifestation of the Cultures of Beauty, Balance and Delight. I suspect that it is also time for us to simply stand in plain sight as Pagan communities of power, justice, abundance and compassion.

What does this mean?

I suspect that it is time to publicly organize under the holy powers of the Sun and the Moon. Among other things, it is time to come out as a Lover of the Good Green Earth. It is time to shamelessly dance in the streets proclaiming the sacred joys of life, love and pleasure.It is time to stand up for the wild at public and private gatherings. It is time to stand up for civility, courtesy and graciousness in the midst of discord and disagreement. It is time to stand up for a sustainable world of justice and fair play.

I know, without a doubt, that it is time to hone our skills. It is time for us to practice the ways of living productive sustainable lives of peace and plenty. It is time to sharpen our understandings around healthy horticulture, earth friendly building and all skills that are needed to nurture enduring sustainable human cultures as a whole.

I also suspect that it is time for us to go out of our way to build durable alliances with folks of like minds and spirits from a wide variety of different traditions. It is time to practice working in groups; in gatherings of our hearth-clans, our feres, our families, our neighbors, our communities, with hearts and minds open to novel possibilities of promise. And as my friend Teri has taught me, it is always time to think well of each other.

Simply put, I suspect that it is the perfect time for Pagans and Witches to shamelessly practice what we preach: The Earth is Sacred, All who dwell on the Good Green Earth are relations, kinsfolk walking the roads of beingness together.

I will be hostessing dinners to explore possibilities of sustainable change. I will be helping to organize public discussions focused on building local alliances. I will be baking spell pies and breads to feed transformative joy into all who taste them. I will be singing songs of healing in public places.

What will you be doing to nurture the Cultures of Beauty, Balance and Delight during these time of swift change? But, just as importantly, what will we do together?

HelloI just wanted to say how empowering I find your blog. I found you a couple of days ago and find I want to keep reading more so am working backwards at present. Your beliefs are very much my own beliefs atho I am less brave than you and will only tell very close friends of my pagan beliefs. I simply say I am not a christian. In the UK it is possibly much less of an issue than it appears to be in the USA. This country being very multi- religious and relatively tolerant to those who are not christians. I want you to know my concerns are with you. Altho we get regular news reports etc on the elections in your country I had not until I read this really understood the implications for people such as you ( and me) since anything that occurs in your country will reverberate around the world! Keep writing. Now I have found you I will keep reading. And best wishes to you. I look forward to reading more about your spells and spell cakes since my own knowledge is very much instinctive and mostly made up as I go along and as I find I need it. I have had no actual teachers.Brax

September 11, 2008, 12:15 pmBeth Owl's Daughter

Brax! Merry Meet! I am so glad you’ve found my little nest. I do hope if you’ve got a LOT of time on your hands, you might enjoy going back and reading some of my previous posts.

I hope you’ll find this a great resource for finding teachers: My web links are a who’s who of some of the wisest, most heart-centered Pagan and Witchcraft teachers you would ever care to meet.

But you know in the UK, there are also some fantastic folks who I just adore. Like my friend, Georgia Midnight Crow who I believe is in Littlehampton.

Anyway, blessings to you and thanks for saying Hi! You are most welcome! – Beth

September 12, 2008, 1:05 pmMaritzia

Thanks for posting this, Beth. As usual, you found just the right sentiment for the day.